The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking eBook

The preparation of dinner if at or near the middle
of the day, and the dish-washing which follows, end
the heaviest portion of the day’s work; and
the same order must be followed. Only an outline
can be given; each family demanding variations in
detail, and each head of a family in time building
up her own system. Remember, however, that, if
but one servant is kept, she can not do every thing,
and that your own brain must constantly supplement
her deficiencies, until training and long practice
have made your methods familiar. Even then she
is likely at any moment to leave, and the battle to
begin over again; and the only safeguard in time of
such disaster is personal knowledge as to simplest
methods of doing the work, and inexhaustible patience
in training the next applicant, finding comfort in
the thought, that, if your own home has lost, that
of some one else is by so much the gainer.

CHAPTER V.

FIRES, LIGHTS, AND THINGS TO WORK WITH.

The popular idea of a fire to cook by seems to be,
a red-hot top, the cover of every pot and saucepan
dancing over the bubbling, heaving contents, and coal
packed in even with the covers. Try to convince
a servant that the lid need not hop to assure boiling,
nor the fire rise above the fire-box, and there is
a profound skepticism, which, even if not expressed,
finds vent in the same amount of fuel and the same
general course of action as before the remonstrance.

The modern stove has brought simplicity of working,
and yet the highest point of convenience, nearly to
perfection. With full faith that the fuel of
the future will be gas, its use is as yet, for many
reasons, very limited; the cost of gas in our smaller
cities and towns preventing its adoption by any but
the wealthy, who are really in least need of it.
With the best gas-stoves, a large part of the disagreeable
in cooking is done away. No flying ashes, no
cinders, no uneven heat, affected by every change
of wind, but a steady flame, regulated to any desired
point, and, when used, requiring only a turn of the
hand to end the operation.

Ranges set in a solid brick-work are considered the
best form of cooking-apparatus; but there are some
serious objections to their use, the first being the
large amount of fuel required, and then the intense
heat thrown out. Even with water in the house,
they are not a necessity. A water-back, fully
as effectual as the range water-back, can be set in
any good stove, and connected with a boiler, large
or small, according to the size of the stove; and
for such stove, if properly managed, only about half
the amount of coal will be needed.

Fix thoroughly in your minds the directions for making
and keeping a fire; for, by doing so, one of the heaviest
expenses in housekeeping can be lessened fully half.